[PF] Coup de Gras

[Zeromage1]

Our fighter dealt 20 damage with a coup de gras on an unconscious giant owl bear. It had 200 HP and was KO'ed before it received any damage via a sleep spell. The DC for the save against the coup de gras was 10 + [ 20 (x2 for a critical hit)= 40] so the dc was 50?

This seems insanely powerful and all you need to do is cast sleep on someone and you can put them in a situation where they need a save of 50 or die. Are we doing something wrong?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Our fighter dealt 20 damage with a coup de gras on an unconscious giant owl bear. It had 200 HP and was KO'ed before it received any damage via a sleep spell. The DC for the save against the coup de gras was 10 + [ 20 (x2 for a critical hit)= 40] so the dc was 50?

This seems insanely powerful and all you need to do is cast sleep on someone and you can put them in a situation where they need a save of 50 or die. Are we doing something wrong?

Sleep takes 1 round to cast which means the wizard spends and entire round casting the spell but it wouldn't go off until the following round. It is incredibly easy spell to disrupt.

[Zeromage1]

Sleep takes 1 round to cast which means the wizard spends and entire round casting the spell but it wouldn't go off until the following round. It is incredibly easy spell to disrupt.

Was that DC calculated correctly? Does the critical damage (double damage) add or is it just the single damage? i.e. should the save in the OP have been 30 or 50?

[Dissonance]

Yes, it is powerful.

No, your not doing anything wrong.

Coup de Gras can only be done against a helpless target. The range of circumstance where a target is helpless is extremely narrow. Basically they must be asleep or paralyzed. The first can be done with a sleep spell, but it doesn't scale. The second can be done later, but only for a very small number of rounds. Both offer constant saves to prevent this from happening.

That's before you get into that it has to be a full round action. Which means that you need coordination and luck for it to be an instant kill with the opponent only needing to make 1 save. AND you provoke opportunity attacks, so his buddy can wallop you if your arrogant enough to try it against a group of enemies.

so sure, it's almost always a one shot kill. But the amount of set up needed normally makes it impractical or taking a lot of coordination and luck.

[Hiro Protagonest]

A blow of fat?

[Zanos]

How did an owlbear with 200 HP have few enough HD to still be vulnerable to the sleep spell?

If this is taking place at a higher level with a sleep spell with a higher HD cap or something, it's just a Save or Die(I assume the sleep is will negates), which is fairly common at higher levels.

[TuggyNE]

Our fighter dealt 20 damage with a coup de gras on an unconscious giant owl bear. It had 200 HP and was KO'ed before it received any damage via a sleep spell. The DC for the save against the coup de gras was 10 + [ 20 (x2 for a critical hit)= 40] so the dc was 50?

This seems insanely powerful and all you need to do is cast sleep on someone and you can put them in a situation where they need a save of 50 or die. Are we doing something wrong?

HD or save or save or die is perfectly fine for a first-level spell. However, technically on a critical hit you roll the damage twice over rather than rolling once and doubling the result.

Edit: And, of course, owlbears have 5 HD and are immune to sleep. Siege owlbears with 202 HP and 15 HD are in turn immune to deep slumber.

[Zeromage1]

HD or save or save or die is perfectly fine for a first-level spell. However, technically on a critical hit you roll the damage twice over rather than rolling once and doubling the result.

Ah ok...thanks for clearing that up actually. I think we've been playing that wrong this whole time. We've just been doubling it.

[DarkSonic1337]

Ah ok...thanks for clearing that up actually. I think we've been playing that wrong this whole time. We've just been doubling it.

Note that's not an unreasonable houserule since all static multipliers are included in both rolls.

Do note that bonus damage dice are only added once. So something like the Xd6 from sneak attack only applies once, but the +X damage from power attack would apply to each roll in the critical hit calculation.


More important for your situation though is that the BugBear is immune to the sleep spell because it has too many hitdice to be affected (see the description of the sleep spell).

[watchwood]

How did an owlbear with 200 HP have few enough HD to still be vulnerable to the sleep spell?

If this is taking place at a higher level with a sleep spell with a higher HD cap or something, it's just a Save or Die(I assume the sleep is will negates), which is fairly common at higher levels.

Witches can get a Sleep like effect, without any HD limit, as an at will SLA.

[Psyren]

A blow of fat?

Beat me to it :smallbiggrin:


Witches can get a Sleep like effect, without any HD limit, as an at will SLA.

Supernatural actually - and it's at-will overall, but only 1/specific target.



This seems insanely powerful and all you need to do is cast sleep on someone and you can put them in a situation where they need a save of 50 or die. Are we doing something wrong?

Please note that this "combo" requires your players to work together, which is exactly what you want them to be doing. And as others have said you need to take another look at how you calculate criticals.

[Slipperychicken]

How did an owlbear with 200 HP have few enough HD to still be vulnerable to the sleep spell?

People forget the rules a surprising number of times, especially for the laundry-list of immunities which tend to pile up on non-humanoids.